“OLD TESTAMENT”

Christian mental minhag that began to dominate in the 2nd century AD after the schism of the 90s AD between the Jews and Nazarenes. The concept was inadvertently encouraged by Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, in several epistles, especially To the Magnesians in the first decade of the 2nd century, in which, aside from displaying an excessive zeal to glorify the offices of hierarchy, he declared anything of Judaism to be ancient myth. Mixed with his anti-Judaism, his attitude helped pave the way for Catholicism. Though anti-Gnostic himself, of course, his views both reflected and helped cement an attitude that would become a crucial springboard for Marcion’s anti-Jewish docetic Gnosticism which rapidly spread in the middle of the 2nd century.

   Ignatius’ letters (circa 107 AD) contain an interesting and fine apostolic style mixed with the emergent anti-Jewishness of 2nd century Christianity and its need to also develop an authority structure. By 100 AD all the apostles had been long dead (It was only later legend that John the Apostle was alive and at Ephesus, a confusion between the Presbyter John; Ignatius’ letter To the Ephesians does not even note the existence of the Apostle John ever having been there, though he does mention Paul, indicating that indeed John was never present). The church was facing the beginning of Gnosticism. It was also entering its first period as a wholly or overwhelmingly dominant Greco-Roman institution.

     Despite the apostolic tenor, Ignatius’ attitude toward Judaism is shocking in light of the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters. In his Epistle to the Magnesians, Ignatius pens with audacity: “Be not deceived by strange doctrines nor by ancient myths, seeing that they are worthless. For if, until now, we live after the rule of Judaism, we confess that we have not received grace. For the Divine prophets lived a life in accordance with Christ Jesus. For this cause too they were persecuted, being inspired by grace, so that unbelievers might be fully convinced that there is One God who manifested Himself through Jesus Christ His Son, who is His Word, coming forth from silence, who in all things did the good pleasure of Him that sent Him. If, then, those who lived in antiquated practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath, but living in accordance with the Lord’s day, whereon our life too had its rising through Him and His death—” Again: “It is outrageous to utter the name of Jesus Christ and live in Judaism. For Christianity believed not in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity, in which people of every tongue believed and were gathered unto God.”

     Deference to apostolic authority was clearly lipped by Ignatius, for in his letter To the Trallians he declared: “But I did not think myself qualified, for this, that I, a convict, should give you orders as though I were an apostle.” Despite the nod to apostolicity, the books of the New Testament clearly did not hold authority yet, else Ignatius would be in serious trouble refuting the instructions in Acts and even Paul’s words in Romans. Ignatius was plainly teaching the works of Gentilizing as promoting grace.

     Ignatius is also reflecting the supersessionism that was clearly beginning to spring forth after the schism. This is also reflected in the Gospel of John, a gospel written in the last decade of the 1st century AD, in which Christ is even made to sound like a Greek and refer to the Torah as “the Jews’ law.” In one passage in the Gospel of John there is even found the statement that “The Jews had already determined to throw out from the synagogue any who confessed that Jesus was the son of God.” Although placed as a contemporary event in the life of Jesus’ ministry, it was in fact done at the Council of Jamnia (rabbinic academy court at Yabneh) in last decade of the 1st century AD when the schism occurred— one of the evidences used to date the Gospel of John to a late date and, moreover, to show it contains a largely inauthentic contemporaneous account of Christ’s teachings and outlook. The Gospel of John is noted for its anti-Jewishness.

     Ignatius is part mirror and part image. But his obsessive drive to equate the bishops with the “Lord himself” and to encourage all the congregations to remain obedient to them helped cement the anti-Jewishness supersessionism as a doctrine in the 2nd century AD church, from which it continued into Catholicism and even into the Reformation denominations.

     Ignatius’ presumptions to overturn the apostolic word is found twofold: one in that he as the Bishop of Antioch takes it upon him to be writing all the churches he is passing while being taken back to Rome for, ostensibly, death in the public arena for being a Christian; and, two, that he follows his self-effacing statement that he a convict should not write unto them like an apostle with: “I have many deep thoughts in union with God, but I take my own measure, lest I perish by boasting. For now I must be more careful and not pay attention to those that flatter me, for those who speak to me in this manner torture me.” And: “Am I not able to write unto you about heavenly things? But I am afraid to, lest I should cause harm to you who are mere babes. So bear with me, lest you be choked by what you are unable to swallow. For I myself, though I am in chains and can comprehend heavenly things, the ranks of the angels and the hierarchy of principalities, things visible and invisible, for all this I am not yet a disciple.” This last reference was to the fact he was not yet tried by death, as in the case of Christ and the apostles— the sign of a true disciple . . .according to Ignatius’ obsession.

     There is no question that Ignatius’ brand of Christianity eventually dominated— a Church stifled by hierarchy. That it declared there to be an “Old Testament” of myths and fables and works broken by the New Testament of grace is remarkable in light of Catholicism and even Ignatius’ mindset of grace— i.e. works contrary to Judaism.

     The epistles of Ignatius are invaluable in understanding the development of corporate Christianity, which to Ignatius was no different than true Christianity. Anybody outside of the Bishop’s and presbytery’s control was not saved. The lack of authority residing in the New Testament books at this time is underscored by the fact that Ignatius is not writing some pseudo-epigraphic work in the name of an apostle; he feels free to assert the position of an apostle, almost like Marcion would less than 40 years after. The difference was that Christianity could spot Marcion’s docetism for being Gnostic heresy. Because Ignatius was anti-Gnostic and also a church leader, his presumptions to declare apostolically the bounds of salvation and church order got through.  Yet there is more than a smacking of false teaching in Ignatius; certainly teachings that go contrary to the apostolic instructions.

     Though Marcion’s heresy would eventually die out, Ignatius’ “catholicism” and “Old Testament” concepts would rise to dominate Christianity and be considered the traditional view. Yet both have no basis in the instructions of the Apostles. Both are based on the presumption of men to assume that authority— Marcion who disagreed with the Jewishness still in the church; and Ignatius who presumed to elevate himself to authority he did not have in order to justify and decree the growing anti-Jewishness in Christianity.

       As the apostolic letters and records were not yet fully authoritative, so likewise with Ignatius’ letters (they were never regarded as Canon, though influential). The Scriptures continued to be the sole source of teaching, else Marcion would not have seen fit to try and further hamstring Christianity from its base 30 years later in 144 AD by rejecting the Scriptures entirely.  Ignatius’ firm conviction that he has knowledge of heavenly things no doubt was not unique. Other bishops and presbyters no doubt felt they still had a certain amount of inbuilt authority equal and independent of the apostles. John the Elder, however, claimed the insight of a “beloved disciple,” who as it turns out may have been just another early era Christian mountebank attempting to guide the paths of Christianity into its own non-Jewish religion.

     It is therefore hard to determine just how “heretical” some “heretics” of the early period were, considering that pillars like Ignatius walked a thin line between heresy and orthodoxy. Ignatius helped to pave the way for a very divergent Christianity which became Catholicism by including the bishops and elders as authorities with the apostles. In his Epistle to the Trallians, he repeats his obsession with the authority structure: “I urge you therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, use only Christian food, and abstain from strange plants, which is heresy. These people, while pretending to be trustworthy, mix Jesus Christ with poison— like those who administer a drug with honeyed wine, which the unsuspecting victim accepts without fear, and so with fatal pleasure drinks death. Therefore be on your guard then against such persons. And you will be, provided you are not puffed up, and if you cling inseparably to Jesus Christ and the bishop and the commandments of the Apostles. He that is within the precincts of the altar is pure, he that is without the precincts of the altar is not pure. That is, he who acts in anything apart from the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons is not pure in conscience.” Ignatius never once claimed to have been a hearer of the apostles or even instated by one; and indeed his standard openly does not require it. He believes he can speak for the Lord. He states categorically that it is not him urging them, “but the love of Jesus Christ” urging them through him. The origin of Ignatius’ philosophy is purely his belief  that he is right. One wonders to what extent  the now-known amendments to New Testament epistles owe their provenance to presumptions of such as Ignatius, like the anti-Jewish polemic in 1 Thessalonians 2: 14-16, or all the church hierarchy in the Pastorals, letters which reflect both 2nd century literary style and Ignatius’ own style.  (See Disputed Books)

   What was it Christ said in Mark 10: 42-43?

   Though Ignatius was seminal in transiting Christianity, his letters are also an interesting knife in the back of both later Catholic claims and Gnostic developments. No where in Ignatius is there any indication of a Rome-centric hierarchy. Indeed, each bishopric appears fully autonomous. Moreover, there is not an inkling in the body of his letters, especially noticeable in the salutations and benedictions, of a trinity. Yet in the end of Matthew, Christ is giving the command to go preach to the world and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost— the later established Catholic triad. (See Trinity) Paul’s New Testament letters imply no such concept. Nor do Ignatius’ yet betray such a concept. Ignatius’ letters still only carry the benediction or salutation: “Jesus Christ, our God” and “Father Most High, God the Father,” “God come in the flesh,” etc., intermingling the concept. In this, Ignatius’ letters no doubt reflect the Apostolic Jewish attitude, one devoid of the later Greco-Romanizing concept of a triad.

   “Catholicizing” of the New Testament has become a major accusation today, one that was also suspected by the Reformers. The Pastorals (Timothy and Titus) were openly Catholic in Luther’s estimation. If such textual criticism as is possible today were possible during the 16th Century, the Reformers would no doubt have engaged in more major textual criticism to remove the obvious Catholic benediction in Matthew. However, the strong “Guidance of the Spirit” gezeirah today still leaves one bound to only slight alterations of Stephanus’ Textus Receptus.

   A critical overview of the New Testament has not been done by believers in an attempt to reestablish the authority of the apostolic Jewish teachings. The “GOTS” gezeirah has only left modern Christianity passive while secularists have done this, often with a slashing knife, in order to reek havoc on the authority of the scripture.

   There is no “Old Testament.” James the Just clearly had heard no such thing. (See Supersessionism) The Synoptics contain the authentic teachings of Jesus. Comments in such questionable books as the Gospel of John such as “the law came by Moses but truth and grace came by Jesus Christ” carry no weight considering they are in a gospel reeking of false comments from Papias or John the Elder. None of these comments in John could change the apostolic teaching to remain firmly based in Scripture. For as much as 100 years after John’s gospel, the Hebrew Testament was still upheld as the major authority in the Church.

   It is in light of such practical application in the early church that one must place Ignatius’ letters in context, and judge what must have been the early reaction to them. With time, however, Ignatius’ attitudes did gain the upper hand. Eventually, in the 3rd century, Christianity became a wholly different thing from its apostolic Jewish origins.

       “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10: For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 12: For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13: Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

   This is the word of the LORD. Search the Scriptures, and live by them. You will understand then why Paul cautioned believers not to think more highly of him or any of the apostles than a man ought to for mere men. You will understand then why the apostles impressed upon their congregations to remain based in Scripture. (See Canon of the New Testament). The word of the LORD is everything. It is not old. To fear him is the delight of his followers.